Rwanda has dedicated this week to activities aimed at demonstrating difficulties women face as the country gears up for this year’s International Women’s Day, which falls on March 8 every year.

While launching the week on Monday at Hotel Novotel Umubano, the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion in the Office of the Prime Minister, Valerie Nyirahabineza, said that the campaign will include messages to girls and women encouraging them to work hard and pay more attention to education, so as to uplift themselves.

"Our campaign message to women will be ‘look, you too can make it. You can become successful businessmen, big investors, and you can achieve a lot if you could only put in a little more effort’" Nyirahabineza said.

She said various officials will during this week travel to among others, higher learning institutions during which they will encourage women students to aim high and to become more academically competitive.

She said that the international theme for this year’s Women’s Day is "Investing in Women and Girls", "Intense focus on financing for gender equality at the country level", adding that the national campaign was itself in line with that theme.

Nyirahabineza said that the government is trying its best to address problems hindering women’s development.

She observed that women have the capacity to achieve what men can in life, but are in most cases overloaded with domestic cores.

"There is a tendency of always associating women’s failure to their nature and yet men can equally fail in the same things as women," the minister noted.

World leaders use the International Women’s Day to call for women emancipation politically, economically and in socio-cultural aspects.

Politically, Rwanda has the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide, and officials say ongoing economic initiatives will help fully integrate women in the country’s economy.

At the international scene, Women’s Day started as a political event, but it is said that in some countries, it has since lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day mixed together.

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